What's More Important in Learning Creative Writing

[Javon Sankoh]

Hey, guys, I am currently enrolled in college, and I plan to minor in Creative Writing to better my knowledge and skills for writing my light novel. Which would you say is more crucial to learn when learning creative writing, poetry or short fiction? I’m conflicted because poetry could potentially teach me to express meaning behind my words while writing differently while short fiction could teach me more about writing the characters, story, conflict, and setting while, again, writing differently. However, I plan for my light novel to be very long so I’m not very sure that learning short fiction will benefit me much. Please help me decide which aspect of creative writing will be more useful for when I write my light novel! Preferably, I would like responses very quickly since I have until this Friday to change my schedule.

[Vic]

Congrats on going to college! Which do you enjoy reading more? Poetry or short stories? Poetry is good if writing literary works that use a lot of unique description. However, light novels are light on descriptions and focus on dialogue. Short stories are similar to novels but usually focus on one character,
setting, plot, conflict, and theme. Because they are short, authors experiment on how the story is delivered and how it sets the mood. A novel is basically an expanded short story with more layers, so studying short stories would benefit in writing light novels, in my opinion. If you change your mind, shouldn’t you be able to change your minor?

[Javon Sankoh]

Thanks, Vic! To be honest, I enjoy reading short stories precisely because of their similarity to novels.Your reasoning makes a lot of sense. I guess I was hesitant to chose because I thought I would be missing out on something that could possibly benefit my light novel. But! Now, my mind is made up. I will try to add the class, “Introduction to Short Fiction”, to my schedule. By the way, you are correct. I am able to change my minor.

[Author]

Posts